Letter to the Editor: Who has the moral high ground?

We received this letter from one of our readers today and to do it justice it gets the full post today. The author Clyde can be found on Twitter at @clydesta and gets our follow recommendation for his defence of PdV and the “B” team tactics.

Thanks for the letter Clyde!

“Let me start off by saying two things:

1. I am not Peter de Villiers’ biggest fan, not by a long shot.

2. I have nothing against All Blacks coach Graham Henry being honest about resting players for the S.A. leg of the Tri-Nations.

It’s okay to query the questionable tactics and player selections, fine. It’s also okay to ponder some of the strange utterances our dear coach makes regarding mechanics, ballerinas and ‘injured’ players.

Regardless of the media uproar, many loyal Springbok supporters believe our coach did the right thing by resting our top Boks for the away leg of the Tri-Nations, particularly after a taxing and arduously long Super Rugby season.

What I do have issue with, is the self-righteous attitude of some of the S.A. sports media fraternity, who feel it is their duty to belittle our coach at every opportunity. The clown references are funny, sure, but I believe we need a clown to navigate our media circus. A circus indeed, barring many respected, objective critics of course. How quick we are to judge, without really knowing all the goings-on that happened in the training (or ‘recuperation’) camp.

To my point: It’s simply not okay to make out that Graham Henry has some sort of ‘moral high ground’ for saying he has rested some players for the S.A. leg of the Tri-Nations, and not saying that they’re injured as Pdivvy has done.

From my point of view, it is infinitely easier to skirt the SANZAR ruling that you must field ‘your best available team’ when your counterpart (Pdivvy) has already rested his best players for the away leg. Bear in mind, that many of our Springboks were in fact injured (some still are). Bear in mind also, that it’s so much easier to field your best starting line-up from the relative comforts of your own country, and to then rotate players in the squad accordingly.

No-one is making more fuss of the Rustenburg reconditioning camp than our own fickle S.A. media.

Here’s hoping that our ‘A’ team can avoid the embarrassment of a first-ever Tri-Nations whitewash this Saturday, and that the PE NZ supporters go home suitably demoralised.”